Freeport mother, daughter dream of children's library in Haiti

FREEPORT — Susan Cain and her daughter will travel to Haiti next month to shape plans for an ambitious gift to the Caribbean nation: a children’s library. It’s a small return favor, Susan believes, for what a Haiti orphanage provided her with 14 years ago: her adopted daughter, Sarah.

FREEPORT — Susan Cain and her daughter will travel to Haiti next month to shape plans for an ambitious gift to the Caribbean nation: a children’s library.

It’s a small return favor, Susan believes, for what a Haiti orphanage provided her with 14 years ago: her adopted daughter, Sarah.

The Cains, who live in rural Freeport, have traveled to Haiti twice before, in 2010 and 2011.

This time, they’ll visit the Desab School, located in the mountain village of Desab on the western coast of Haiti. The school was recommended as a suitable site for a children’s library by Volunteers for Peace, a Vermont-based nonprofit agency that coordinates voluntary service programs around the globe. The Cains will visit Desab next month to see the school for themselves and hone their plans for establishing a children’s library there.

“We needed to make this our own project and something we need to do forever,” Susan said. “Haiti is where Sarah was born. She was my biggest blessing, so I want to give back to Haiti because it gave me her.”

Sarah was adopted when she was 8 months old in 1999. Susan said that she thinks it is important to take Sarah back so that she knows about where she came from.

The Desab visit is purely a fact-finding mission. Transforming her dream of a children’s library into reality will be no easy task, Susan said. She still has no sense of the total cost of a project of this scale. She is optimistic, however, that her dream can become a reality.

“It’ll be our responsibility, and a lot will come from donations,” Susan said. “I have no idea what it will be like, who will build it or the logistics ... The whole thing is kind of a leap of faith.”

Sarah, an eighth-grader at Pearl City Junior High School, has previously raised more than $1,000 for charity work in Haiti. She has done so by selling hand-drawn note cards and T-shirts.

Susan and Sarah will be picked up at the airport by the school’s principal and taken to the school. There they hope to meet with the teachers and tour the area. They will then decide whether the library will be housed in an existing building or if a new one will need to be built.

“I think part of it is the humanitarian aspect,” Susan said. “They are our neighbors, and there is a large Haitian-American population here.”

Because neither Susan nor Sarah speak French or Creole, the two official languages in Haiti, they will be shown the area by a guide. In 2010, they went to the country to provide humanitarian aide at a mission, and in 2011 they visited the orphanage that Sarah was from and brought supplies to it.

Page 2 of 2 - “Sarah has such a love of books,” Susan said. “I want to name the library after her. I think it will be called ‘Sarah’s Gift’ in either French or Creole.”

Volunteers for Peace will be accepting donations on behalf of the Cains’ library project. But it will be up to the mother and daughter to make this story come alive.

“We want to send letters out when we get home to let people know what we’re doing,” Susan said. “It will give people the chance to be a part of something that’s never been. It’ll be up to us to raise money for it.”